In the run-up to last Sunday’s regional election, the social
network had become a platform for leaking audio recordings of
compromising conversations between government officials.

Erdogan, who claimed that the recordings were either manipulated,
undermined national security, or intruded into private lives,
sought last month to cut off access to Twitter and the
video-sharing website, YouTube.

Among dozens of damaging revelations was a purported intelligence
agency plan to stage a false flag attack on a Turkish monument in
Syria, and a conversation between Erdogan and his family about
millions of dollars in cash stashed in his house.

Nonetheless, Erdogan’s Islamist AK Party won Sunday’s vote, which
was seen by many not as a municipal poll, but as a referendum on
the party’s 12-year-rule.

Wiretapped recordings began to appear at the beginning of this
year, following a political split between Erdogan and former ally
and rival, Fethullah Gulen, a powerful preacher and politician
currently exiled in the US.

Erdogan has accused Gulen of operating a 'deep state' of
thousands of government and security service employees who are
loyal to him and not to the government, and says the recordings
are their handiwork.

Gulen has denied the accusations.

While Erdogan initially appeared merely peeved by the leaks, as a
tumultuous election approached, he began to take concrete
measures.

A government-sponsored bill in February made it easy to block
websites without a court order.

In his stump speeches, Erdogan called the internet-sourced
allegations “villainous” and promised to “root
out” Twitter, which has more than 10 million users in the
country. He also railed against other social networks such as
Facebook, which he threatened to shut down.

Erdogan’s critics at home, and even longtime foreign allies such
as the US, criticized his crackdown, calling it a move towards
authoritarianism.

Nonetheless, the AK Party has captured 45 percent of the vote –
six more than in the last comparable election in 2009 – far more
than the block of opposition parties.

In the aftermath, Erdogan promised to find the
“coup-supporting traitors” who opposed him and released
the audio tapes and “hunt them down in their lair.”